Garrett Oliver is a cool black man who makes controversial statements that keep Brooklyn Brewery inthe limelight, but he himself is probably too busy doing book tours to have actually brwered any beer himself in the past few years.
I think he made that statement for the same reason the Sam Adams guy made his anti-IPA statement...sour hops. Neither of them have done a decent DIPA. Until now.
Your 4% seems like old numbers. It was 5.7% in 2011 and 6.5% in 2012. See below. That's a significant increase.
Bottom line is no matter where you are, the masses are going to drink the shitty stuff. Even in Belgium with all of their great Trappist and Trappist inspired ales that have been around forever, most people drink Jupilier and Stella. The masses drink beer to get drunk, not for taste. And tasteless lager goes down much faster than tasty beer.
The Brewers Association, which represents ?small? American breweries that produce less than six million barrels annually, proudly announced that craft beer had a terrific 2012. Across the board, craft beer numbers were up: 18% more breweries in the U.S., 15% more beer produced by volume, a 17% increase in sales, and a whopping rise of 72% in American craft beer exports.
Overall, beer sales by volume increased just 1% in 2012. Sales of traditional mass-produced beer in the U.S. have basically remained flat for several years, giving the impression that if consumers are drinking more beer, they?re probably turning to craft beverages. Drinkers even seem to be shying away from the usual beer options on chug-happy holidays like St. Patrick?s Day, when beer sales declined by 4% over the weekend at bars, compared to last year.
All that said, craft beer still accounts for a small portion of the market. A little over 10% of all U.S. dollars spent on beer is directed to craft brews, and in 2012 6.5% of the total volume of beer purchased in the U.S. was craft, up from 5.7% in 2011.
Read more:
http://business.time.com/2013/03/22/as-craft-beer-gets-bigger-will-it-become-more-like-big-beer-or-perhaps-wine/#ixzz2Si5JfHfHSchlenkerla Fastenbier
Allagash Odyssey
Brooklyn Blast
Had these at Paradiso Old Town last night. All were very good.
Can definitely see why Fastenbier is the #1 smoked beer in the world on ratebeer. Definitely one of the best German produced beers I've had. Makes me want to go to Bamberg on our next trip to Germany.
The Oddysey is a barrel aged 10.4% abv dark wheat beer categorized as a "strong dark Belgian". It was very good and reminded me of a weizenbock (the best German beer style in my book). Though it wasn't as good as a Schneider Aventinus.
The Brooklyn Blast was a pleasant surprise (not typically a Brooklyn Brewery fan). It's a DIPA in name, but it's definitely low on the bitterness. Very refreshing with burst of flavor. A DIPA for people who don't like DIPA's (and for those who do but want something a little different).
Funny I just read something from the Brooklyn Brewery guy who basically said Double IPA's were dumb. I guess it was a few years ago. Sell-out.
He did make an interesting points in the article. That Craft Breweries only have 4 percent of the market and if you keep introducing people to craft beers with double ipa's you won't get market share as people will say craft beer is awful. And then go back to drinking mass produced beer. He makes good points. He also said a double IPA is like saying be a man and drink this it is the hoppiest beer you have ever drank is like a chef saying be a man and eat this roast as it is the saltiest roast you have ever tasted.
I agreed with all he said and then he does something stupid like make a double IPA.
